Danish toymeister Lego has unveiled the largest model yet using its eponymous plastic chunks: a 43ft (13.1 meters) X-wing fighter that's a claimed 1:1 scale replica of George Lucas' Death Star destroyer, and is 42 times the size of the same kit that Lego offers to children (old and young).
A Lego X-Wing fighter in Times Square …

COMMENTS

Surely there's some armature?

That nose is a 4m cantilever - even if entirely hollow that's still a whump of torque and compression beyond anything I'd expect of boring domestic Lego bricks. Or if it's all Lego then I presume one of the standard bricks now in use is "two metre steel strip covered with Lego nipples"?

Re: Surely there's some armature?

Re: Surely there's some armature?

It's possible. Don't forget the full range of Lego bricks include the Technic Lego bricks with the holes in the size and the black stud pieces for interconnecting them that way. Using those to brace on the flat (between adjacent rows) and vertically (between separate layers) I can well imagine building some incredibly strong load bearing beams with the right engineering principals. Even using standard bricks I remember figuring out how to make a reasonably strong beam as a kid - the trick was to realise that in the usual orientation the studs would naturally pull apart from below but you could work around that by building those parts sideways on, i.e. with the studs pointing horizontally as opposed to vertically.

I don't recall Lego as ever being cheap though, it was always very expensive compared to other toys or even rival brands of the same kind of brick. The key to vast collections was the quality - Lego just doesn't die. I had a large collection but it was built up both of stuff I'd got and hand-me-downs from my brother and sister, elder cousins and even my parents(!). It then went to my nephew whose now 19 and I've no doubt we'll get it back whenever my wife and I start a family since we're naturally the next in line for sprogs within the family.

Re: Surely there's some armature?

I wish I had one if those steel straps - I remember snapping my very long red-flat (fnarr fnarr) clean in half when convinced myself (about age 6) that I could build a Lego Skateboard. Though it did spur me on to develop more innovative building techniques like The Chap's.

Re: Surely there's some armature?

Re: Surely there's some armature?

I asked a civ engineer years ago about why Americans like wood, seems like there's a few factors, Not everywhere has suitable clay so brick is not always the most easily available material. Theres more people who can build in wood because of this. It has better properties than brick in many way not just insulation wise but it can also be structurally better in a fire. Its easier to work with and more versatile with how you can lay out the building, there were a fair few reasons :)

I figure in a big tornado as well bricks not going to make much difference in resistance.

Re: Now let's see

Please let it not be strong enough for California law....

So Legoland Florida gets it instead (maybe) and I actually get a chance to see it.

Joking aside though, Its pretty cool (and honestly shocking as hell to a Central Florida native like myself) to see that Disney's being flexible with something of their IP that's going to go into another company's theme park. They sure as hell wouldn't be that cool to the Busch owned parks in the area or to NBC Universal.

Then again, Lego had the Star Wars license long before Disney owned it. Kind of makes you wonder how many of their other competitors are producing Star Wars tat.

Re: Please let it not be strong enough for California law....

>to see that Disney's being flexible with something of their IP that's going to go into another company's theme park.

The original Legoland in Billund, Denmark has had a Star Wars section for three years now. No life-size X-wings, but pretty neat and partly animated miniature scenes. I wish they made a copy of that big X-wing for the BIllund site as well (visiting it from Finland is much more reasonable). Shortage of bricks should not be a problem, the Lego factory is right next door.

Re: Please let it not be strong enough for California law....

"Joking aside though, Its pretty cool (and honestly shocking as hell to a Central Florida native like myself) to see that Disney's being flexible with something of their IP that's going to go into another company's theme park. They sure as hell wouldn't be that cool to the Busch owned parks in the area or to NBC Universal."

You forget that Universal Islands of Adventure use Marvel characters at the park. When Disney bought Marvel my co-workers brought up the issue of Universal keeping the characters and I pointed out that whatever licensing contract they had probably went with it. Four years later and I still haven't seen a change.

Okay, so 5,335,200 bricks divided by the meaning of life is 127,028. I don't think I've seen a lego set with 127,208 bricks in it. The biggest lego set produced was the Taj Mahal with 5922 pieces. Which would make this thing 890 times bigger than any retail set they have produced.... Me thinks someone needs to take some basic math classes.